Chile does not a New Mexican make

I hate green chile.
Something about the feisty little plant just doesn’t connect with my taste buds, but more than I hate green chile, I hate the cult of exclusivity that goes along with the fiery diet staple.

It’s out of hand: green chile burritos, green chile cheeseburgers, etc. For god’s sake, there is a dish where a green chile is fried, stuffed with cheese, and then smothered with green chile. It needs to stop.

The problem with green chile is the sense that only New Mexican people can partake of the vegetable, and that somehow sets the population apart from the rest of the country. But it doesn’t. In fact, our reliance on green chile only further proves the conformity of our state’s citizens.

Here’s my theory behind the fevered spicy love: People only love green chile because it is naturally available in the state. When out-of-towners come here, they quickly develop a love for it, but only because they are brought into contact with it. So everyone likes it. Everyone that eats it with regularity, anyway, which leads to my next point.

Liking green chile is nothing novel. It’s simple, actually. If some yuck from New York, California, across the sea or anywhere can come here and fall for it, then it’s nothing special. Do you hear me? Green chile is not special! It’s just another regional dish that regional folks pride themselves in to fill the vacuous space caused by a lack of personality.

Even worse is the fact that you aren’t considered “New Mexican” if you don’t like green chile, as is the case with me. I had a punk from New Jersey tell me I wasn’t New Mexican because I didn’t like green chile — me, who spent the better part of my childhood growing up in Española, where the general dialect is some kind of mix between ancient Spanish, broken English and the occasional “que no,” is not New Mexican enough.
Green chile robs the true New Mexicans such as myself of a heritage and then bequeaths it onto people from New Jersey, the home of Jersey Shore. Just think about that for a moment before you continue on with the rest of your day.

That being said, I know there are some of you nodding in disgust, “Chris, you can’t make this sort of blanket statement. Not everyone who likes green chile is filling the vacuous space where a personality should be. Some people just have taste buds inclined to spicier foods, and green chile, being in natural abundance here, offers those people a venue for their taste buds. And yes, the chile worship at times is ridiculous, but you can’t let the extreme ends of any culture speak for the culture as a whole. Just as all Middle Easterners are not terrorists, all white males are not rednecks or unibombers; all Asians are not good at math or part of the Yukaza; all black people are not good at basketball. You can’t let a portion speak for the whole.”

And if I were rational, I would agree with you. But I am not, and am not obligated to be in anyway shape or form. You can’t combat a ridiculous argument with logic. It’s like trying to put out a grease fire with water. You think it might help, but you are just going to make that puppy worse.

For example, if you tell me that all green chile lovers are not vacuous human beings, I will simply accuse you of being brainwashed by chile and break down your completely rational point in my completely irrational mind.
In a similar trend, completely rational people make well-thought points and reasons in favor of allowing a mosque to go up near ground zero are accused by crazy people of being terrorist sympathizers.

It would be nice to demand that these insane people like me and millions of others be sane and listen to logic, but that won’t work. We can shout louder. You can’t put out a grease fire with water; you have to smother it.
So until the sane people are willing to take extreme measures to put out the grease fire of America — which they won’t because they are sane and rational — be prepared to listen to the nation’s crazy people. Just try not to take it to heart.
But seriously, go to hell, green chile.